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[QuantumBro]

Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That's according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people. (For perspective, a run-of-the-mill survey measuring Trump's job approval right now has a sample of 800 to 1,500.)

What drove those voters to Trump? Schaffner dug into that, as well. What it wasn't was trade, an issue where Sanders was closer to Trump's philosophy than Clinton's. At least, the issue of trade didn't seem to have that much of an impact.

Party seems to have had something to do with it — Sanders-Trump voters were much less likely than Sanders-Clinton or Sanders-third-party voters to have been Democrats. Likewise, approval of President Barack Obama appears to be related — Sanders-Trump voters approved of Obama much less than other Sanders primary voters.

And then there's race. Nearly half of Sanders-Trump voters disagree with the idea that "white people have advantages." That's much higher than the share of other Sanders voters who agreed with that idea.

To answer the question many Clinton supporters may be asking: By this data, yes — there are enough of those Sanders-Trump voters to have potentially swung the election toward Clinton and away from Trump.

Specifically, if the Sanders-Trump voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had voted for Clinton, or even stayed home on Election Day, those states would have swung to Clinton, and she would have won 46 more electoral votes, putting her at 278 — enough to win, in other words.

More info about it here.

Blame anyone but Hillary Clinton if old.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Huh. Guess I gave them too much credit.

 

[smokeymicpot]

Not surprised.

 

[bigkrev]

I'm actually shocked it's this low. I would have figured it was closer to 25%.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Specifically, if the Sanders-Trump voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had voted for Clinton, or even stayed home on Election Day, those states would have swung to Clinton

Thanks, guys!

Guess we can't just blame them, since enough others voted Trump. But going from Sanders to Trump seems like such a strange leap.

 

[Whompa02]

Stupid people who don't actually understand what they're supporting.

 

[Daedardus]

How much of those still stand by with what they did?

 

[cirrhosis]

In other news water is wet
All this shit is on them

 

[RRockman]

how idiotic.

 

[teruterubozu]

I thought it would be more actually.

 

[Velcro Fly]

All the proof I need

 

[Muffin1611]

And how many Sanders primary voters didn't vote in the general at all? I figure that would be the bigger chunk, no?

 

[Unknown One]

Stupid fucking idiots.

 

[Captin Quacker]

 

[The Technomancer]

I suspect they were probably never going to vote for Clinton. Meh

 

[Beer Monkey]

Some people just like old white guys.

 

[BronsonLee]

Purity tests are stupid

 

[Kurtofan]

28% of Clinton voters went McCain in 2008

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Specifically, if the Sanders-Trump voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had voted for Clinton, or even stayed home on Election Day, those states would have swung to Clinton, and she would have won 46 more electoral votes, putting her at 278 — enough to win, in other words.

Absolutely fucking infuriating and mind-boggling. These people are abject fucking morons.

 

[Razorback]

1 in 10 isn't that many.

 

[Gnome Scat]

What kind of mental gymnastics do you need to do to justify that switch?

 

[LProtag]

I can't fathom how people would go from voting for someone who calls himself a socialist to Donald Trump, the epitome of capitalism.

 

[Kinsei]

Fucking idiots.

 

[HStallion]

Thanks, guys!

Guess we can't just blame them, since enough others voted Trump. But going from Sanders to Trump seems like such a strange leap.

I know several Sanders supporters that pulled this myself even after I brought up how those two were basically nothing alike.

 

[cooljeanius]

Darn it fellow Sanders supporters, I tried to warn you... (1 in 10 is still too much)

 

[Slayven]

I'm actually shocked it's this low. I would have figured it was closer to 25%.

Me too

I would go as high 30-35.

 

[Sulik2]

Sanders and Trump were the two candidates saying something different. It's not really surprising. The Democratic party running a bog standard toe the line centrist when the country is clearly sick of the way the government is being run is the big mistake. Many just wanted someone different, even if it was Trump.

 

[xxracerxx]

That is pretty disgusting even at 10%.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

Ugh that's worse than abstaining from voting... but at the very least, I'm sure each one of them regrets it now (even if they won't admit to it).

 

[Jigorath]

Yeah that sounds about right. There was a minority of Sanders supporters that clearly didn't care about Sanders or his platform, they were just pure anti-Hillary. So of course these bozos would go to bat for Trump.

 

[ManDudeChild]

All these articles say the same thing over and over

Tl;dr - the I cant get my guy so screw this crowd, the racists crowd, the hubris Hillary. It's the best dead horse to beat.... because discussing the why's over and over is easier than actively doing something about what most likely is the beginning of the long-term fall of the U.S.

 

[Steel]

I'm actually shocked it's this low. I would have figured it was closer to 25%.

Most busters were more likely to not vote or go green.

 

[Future]

For them, it was not ever about being liberal or being progressive

 

[Nydius]

Meh, the most important point is buried further down the page:

A more important caveat, perhaps, is that other statistics suggest that this level of "defection" isn't all that out of the ordinary. Believing that all those Sanders voters somehow should have been expected to not vote for Trump may be to misunderstand how primary voters behave.

For example, Schaffner tells NPR that around 12 percent of Republican primary voters (including 34 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich voters and 11 percent of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio voters) ended up voting for Clinton. And according to one 2008 study, around 25 percent of Clinton primary voters in that election ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general.

 

[Zen Aku]

1 out of 10? That's not a lot. I thought it might be more tbh.

 

[aspaceman55]

Can we just stop the blame game?

Almost half of the eligible votes this go around were dumb as hell, we can all agree on that.

The question I'm interested in is, why did Bernie's message work on these dumb people, but Hillary's didn't? What made Trump's words work on them? Were there differences in optics? Was it sexism at work? Did Hillary fail to talk about issues people cared about? I think the fact they changed is evidence enough these voters can be convinced to vote against Trump next time around.

This whole vilian-izing of Bernie voters misses that entirely and is just a waste of time. What are you going to do? Physically stop them from going to the polls? You either depress them or convince them. Pick one.

 

[Cerium]

On election night here on GAF I got private messages from Sanders supporters I had argued with during the primary gloating about Trump's victory.

 

[rashbeep]

doesn't sound like a lot, but enough to make a difference

good job fools

 

[SheSaidNo]

Why not also add this

A more important caveat, perhaps, is that other statistics suggest that this level of "defection" isn't all that out of the ordinary. Believing that all those Sanders voters somehow should have been expected to not vote for Trump may be to misunderstand how primary voters
For example, Schaffner tells NPR that around 12 percent of Republican primary voters (including 34 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich voters and 11 percent of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio voters) ended up voting for Clinton. And according to one 2008 study, around 25 percent of Clinton primary voters in that election ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general. (In addition, the data showed 13 percent of McCain primary voters ended up voting for Obama, and 9 percent of Obama voters ended up voting for McCain — perhaps signaling something that swayed voters between primaries and the general election, or some amount of error in the data, or both.)

All of that said, one other figure that stuck out to Schaffner: Compared to those numbers above, Clinton 2016 voters were remarkably loyal — "I found basically no Clinton primary voters who voted for Trump," he told NPR in an email.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Those people are pretty damn dumb.

For context, I believe McCain '08 and Bush '04 also got around 10% of the Democrat vote in those presidential election. It's pretty near to the normal rate, if I recall.

 

[kirblar]

Who could have imagined that there was a really problematic undercurrent to a subset of Sanders' supporters?

Thanks, guys!

Guess we can't just blame them, since enough others voted Trump. But going from Sanders to Trump seems like such a strange leap.

I think in some of these cases, Sanders was their second choice and they voted in the D primary because the R primary settled earlier. We saw this in West Virginia.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

White working class* got mad when an uppity bitch told them they had better than people of color.

This really isn't shocking, and the number isn't all that high.

 

[dantevsninjas]

So they supported two different candidates, without understanding what either stood for. Sounds about right.

 

[rjinaz]

Thanks, guys!

Guess we can't just blame them, since enough others voted Trump. But going from Sanders to Trump seems like such a strange leap.

It was an anti-establishment vote.

LOL Trump.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Lot less than I expected

Still embarrassingly stupid

 

[BitStyle]

These people confuse me. Like, if you were discouraged from voting after the primary that's one thing. Going from Bernie's platform to Trump's diarrhea however, what were they actually supporting in Bernie's platform?

 

[Fenderputty]

I'm actually shocked it's this low. I would have figured it was closer to 25%.

Yeah ... during the primaries I was sure it would be in the 20's

 

[Aurongel]

I'm surprised it wasn't 3/10.

 

[Loudninja]

1 in 10 isn't that many.

It was enough though.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

And then there's race. Nearly half of Sanders-Trump voters disagree with the idea that "white people have advantages." That's much higher than the share of other Sanders voters who agreed with that idea.

thinkingman.jpg

edit for fairness: as it was pointed out above this isn't really out of the ordinary, but the people involved still aren't the brightest